What is green for me isn’t necessarily green for us. What is green for now isn’t necessarily green forever. Global sustainability as a standard isn’t necessarily the only way each of us makes choices for our families.

One of our customers asked, “What is the difference between products that are green for the environment and green for health?” That is a seemingly simple question that breaks out into a lot of complexities depending on how we make our choices. To look at it very simply, products that are green for health have no (or fewer) immediate negative effects on us; products that are green for the environment have no (or fewer) global negative effects. The problem is, the global negative effects as immediate to someone, and they do come back to all of us as they change and poison our basic resources. We end up with poisoned water from pesticide runoff with convention cotton growing, flooding after mountain-top removal to mine coal used to produce moderated scrubbed “clean coal” energy, high asthma rates near power plants using natural gas for more so-called clean energy, and so on.

Just because a particular choice is good for the planet, a choice like organic clothing, doesn’t mean it has an immediate impact on health. Choosing organic fibers has a big impact on global health, though, and it has a big impact on the immediate health of workers in the fields. Poisoning the fields today will continue to have immediate effects close to the field and downstream effects for us all. By the time those effects are felt, will we still connect them to the choice to buy organic clothing or not? I hope so, but we don’t always draw straight lines that way. Is organic clothing good for my children’s immediate health? Probably not. Is organic clothing good for the environment? Absolutely. As I wrote earlier this week, though, the choices with children’s clothing aren’t black and white, and other issues (like short-term cash flow) can trump our best intentions.

Most of us as parents are trying to improve choices. Some of the problems we are trying to solve are acute; some are chronic. Some of the problems we are trying to solve involve immediate effects on our children; some are global.

Ultimately, green for the environment means green for health in the long term. What is good for the environment, what is sustainable is good for you. You can pay the price now or later, but we all share positive and negative effects on our global environment.

]]>http://www.ecobabysteps.com/2011/09/03/green-for-me-or-green-for-us/feed/0My Conscious Choices, Your Conscious Choiceshttp://www.ecobabysteps.com/2010/04/19/my-conscious-choices-your-conscious-choices/
http://www.ecobabysteps.com/2010/04/19/my-conscious-choices-your-conscious-choices/#commentsMon, 19 Apr 2010 14:00:34 +0000Attached Mamahttp://www.ecobabysteps.com/?p=1730Continue reading →]]>Why do you do what you do? What flipped your switch and helped you realize that you could make a difference in the choices you make for your children and for your family? Or, was it a gradual dawning realization that you didn’t have to do what everyone else around you was doing?

So many of the subjects dear to us at Eco Baby Steps are about personal choices—often about personal changes. How do we open ourselves up to change then reach that moment of action in a new direction?

I’ve been thinking, as Earth Day is coming and everyone has a pitch, how do each of us make sure that we are doing what we think we are doing? How do we make sure that we look at our environmental choices or our parenting choices or any choice in our lives while in a state of wakefulness, looking at implications, meanings, and contexts without getting so wound up that we shut right back down again?

Stay awake! Check your own consciousness.

If you don’t want to fall for just any tip or buy anything because it is labelled “green” or “natural,” you need to know why you are making the choices you are.

For me, for example, renewable resources are very important. When I looked at cloth diapers for my children, it wasn’t just a matter of being satisfied with reusability. I wanted to use materials that were natural, with at least a chance of disintegrating in the compost and returning to the Earth. The value that drove me was natural materials. Waste or low water use or cost might drive the cloth diaper choices of others.

Ask Yourself a Few Questions

Take a deep breath, open your eyes wide, and ask yourself a few questions as you hear the Earth Day pitches.

Do I want to do this?

Why?

Really?

What priority does it have in my life?

OK, when? Should I do it immediately, phase it in, or should it go on a wish list?

Here are a few examples of choices we might make as we engage ourselves. The menstrual pad conversation is hypothetical, since I made the switch a long time ago, but the fair trade chocolate conversation happened only a couple of months ago.

Why? I just can’t take a chance that I take pleasure in a product that caused so much pain to another in its production.

Really? Yes. I just don’t look at a bag of M&Ms the same now.

What priority does it have in my life? Highest, though I don’t want to spend too much money. I can go without chocolate if necessary. I won’t buy non-fair trade chocolate at all.

When? Immediately.

We did make this switch completely and immediately. Calming my biggest chocolate-related worry, I found fair trade milk chocolate (Sunspire), and tonight, as I write, my children and I are going to make chocolate chip cookies with fair trade semi-sweet chocolate chips that come in bulk in our local conscious grocery. (What do we call those now? Used to be a “health food store,” but it is just our grocery store.)

Where Is The Truth In Environmental Claims

Engage yourself in a short conversation before you follow marketing pitches this week to “green your life” or “lower your impact” or “don’t listen to those other guys because we’re telling you the truth.”

The truth in your choices is in your values. It doesn’t work to just say that everyone should make the same choices. Yes, there are observable, material impacts to our actions that should be taken into account. Yes, laziness can often drive our values. If we can overcome our tendencies to avoid change (“Oh, I just don’t know if I could use reusable toilet wipes.”) or difference (“If I wear my baby in a sling, people might look at me.”), we ought to land somewhere in the area of choices that will actually lower our impact. I might add insulation to my walls and attic while you take the train. I might buy a reusable water bottle while you turn your compost. These aren’t comparable choices. We each have to make our own choices, and we won’t know which are the right choices unless we wake up and ask ourselves.

May your resolve be strong and your consciousness engaged this week so you don’t fall for every call.

]]>http://www.ecobabysteps.com/2010/04/19/my-conscious-choices-your-conscious-choices/feed/1Lower Environmental Impact of Cloth Diapershttp://www.ecobabysteps.com/2010/04/12/lower-environmental-impact-of-cloth-diapers/
http://www.ecobabysteps.com/2010/04/12/lower-environmental-impact-of-cloth-diapers/#commentsMon, 12 Apr 2010 14:00:11 +0000Attached Mamahttp://www.ecobabysteps.com/?p=1695Continue reading →]]>Around Earth Day there is a lot of talk about which baby products are best for the environment. Watch out for the lie that disposable diapers are either a better choice or that they have the same environmental impact as cloth diapers. It isn’t true, and it’s easy to trace the source of this misunderstanding.

In 2005, a study came out in the United Kingdom comparing the lifecycle analysis (the overall impact) of cloth diapers with disposable diapers. Unfortunately, the study stacked the data in favor of disposable diapers, using best-case future projections for disposable diapers and no data for low-impact reusable cloth diapers. Even this flawed study and its follow-up a few years later found very little overlap between the highest impact cloth diaper and the lowest projected impact for disposable diapers. If they had bothered getting current low-impact data for cloth diapers or using projected future data for cloth diapers, there would have been no significant overlap. If they had considered all of the external costs associated with oil and gas used to make plastic, impact would not even be close.

In the body of the study, the data show that careful washing and drying of cloth diapers makes the environmental impact of cloth diapers far less than the environmental impact of disposable diapers. That isn’t what they wrote in the conclusion, however, so disposable diaper companies, even those that market themselves as so-called eco-disposables, dig no further than one line in the study to justify their claims.

The data does not support the claim. If anyone tries to tell you that the impact of disposable diapers is less than or equal to cloth diapers as marketers take advantage of Earth Day, set them straight. Don’t accept greenwashing. Read the review of the UK diaper studies at What a Waste to get the real scoop.

Lower the Impact of Your Diapers

The key to lower impact for cloth diapers is washing and drying. This is true of all of your home laundry.

The takeaway is obvious: wash with care; care how you wash.

Reusable cloth diapers leave disposable diapers sitting, fuming in the landfill when it comes to real impacts and the way real parents wash their cloth diapers.

How do you lower impacts of reusable cloth diapers?

* Use Energy Star rated washing machines.
* Wash diapers at 140 degrees.
* Air dry.
* Use washable wipes and liners.
* Use low-impact detergent.
* Use organic products.
* Reuse diapers for the next child, then give them away or sell them to another.

]]>http://www.ecobabysteps.com/2010/04/12/lower-environmental-impact-of-cloth-diapers/feed/2Green Certifications: Familiar Sealshttp://www.ecobabysteps.com/2009/10/02/green-certifications-familiar-seals/
http://www.ecobabysteps.com/2009/10/02/green-certifications-familiar-seals/#commentsFri, 02 Oct 2009 14:00:44 +0000Attached Mamahttp://www.ecobabysteps.com/?p=663Continue reading →]]>A new report shows that consumers do look for familiar eco seals. What are you looking at when you see that merit badge sash of seals? What do these familiar seals mean, and how will they help you make green choices? We’ve separated the list into four types of seals:

When do memberships help you make greener choices? Green America Business Network has members who also go through a rigorous screening process before they can display the business seal of approval. Green America looks more at the impact of the overall business than the individual products, but this seal is a great start in your search for greener products.

Awards

You may notice that a lot of cloth diapers and baby carriers are described as “award-winning.” What are the awards, and what do they mean? Below are some of the awards you will find on baby products.

For the iParenting Media awards, a manufacturer submits a product and pays a $300 fee. Then, paid reviewers put the product through their evaluation system. If chosen, the product is then promoted by iParenting Media.

For the Mr Dad Seal of Approval, a manufacturer submits a product and pays an evaluation fee of $129.95 to cover administrative costs. Those products chosen for approval then carry a seal from “America’s Most Trusted DadTM,” who is a newspaper columnist and radio host on fathering topics.

PTPA Media, Parent Tested Parent Approved, also requires manufacturers to submit product and pay a $400.00 to cover administrative and promotional costs. The product is reviewed by four reviewers and PTPA Media. If chosen, the product can carry a seal and will be included in promotion and media.

Great Gear of the Year Award from Shape You for sports, health, and fitness products requires a $75 submission fee. If the product is not chosen for award, it will still be featured on the website for one year.

Book or magazine endorsements often carry the logo of the publication. Whether these products are submitted for review or chosen by the editorial staff varies.

None of these awards listed tells you whether the product itself is lower impact than any other. Many product awards are marketing opportunities that don’t give you the kind of information you need to make greener choices. As alluring as the words “award-winning” can be, don’t be misled into thinking that awards give you information beyond meeting criteria that are not always made public.

Pledges & Petitions

Have you seen bloggers and website owners declare I Took the Handmade Pledge from BuyHandmade.org? Or, maybe you have seen a blog with a badge that says My Blog Fights Climate Change from the 350 Challenge. Pledges can give site visitors an indication of commitments, while petition seals and banners are often posted in order to activate visitors to become signers.

Eco Logo is a Canadian government certification for sustainable products based on lifecycle. Green Seal uses science-based sustainable standards and is most often found on building and facilities-related materials. You might find it on household cleaners. More likely on products for home and family is a common seal like the Green Goodhousekeeping Seal.

Another kind of certification that isn’t about environmental impact so much as a generally healthy environment for you and your family is the Asthma and Allergy Friendly Certification, which can be given to any product that is marketed allergy-friendly.

Certification seal and certification marks give you the kind of substitute trust you need when you are far removed from the producers of the goods you use. Legal guarantees, standards, and third-party certification gives people reassurances. They should not, however, be substitutes for building trusting relationships with producers who are engaged in their communities and working to lower their impact in ways very much like you are.

]]>http://www.ecobabysteps.com/2009/10/02/green-certifications-familiar-seals/feed/0Green Certifications: Do Consumers Care?http://www.ecobabysteps.com/2009/09/30/green-certifications-do-consumers-care/
http://www.ecobabysteps.com/2009/09/30/green-certifications-do-consumers-care/#commentsWed, 30 Sep 2009 14:00:26 +0000Attached Mamahttp://www.ecobabysteps.com/?p=632Continue reading →]]>The same day I posted the whys and meanings of green certifications, I caught a link to a report that says that consumers pay little or no attention to the certifications. Consumers don’t trust the trustmarks. That is disheartening for those who are trying to do right by consumers—or even those who are looking for an effective marketing tool.

For familiarity, three U.S. government seals rank highest:

Recyclable (89% familiar),

Energy Star (87% familiar), and

USDA Organic (62% familiar).

Familiarity is one thing, but does the seal influence purchase? Some do:

Energy Star (31% always),

Recyclable (20% always),

USDA Organic (8% always), and

Smart Choice (7% always).

The most interesting point to me was the fact that most trustmarks fail to drive sales—most. To which consumers do the seals and certifications connect? To the “Enlighteneds.” According to this particular segmentation of consumers, there are: Enlighteneds (10% of consumers), Aspirationals (20%), Practicals (30%), and Indifferents (40%).

“Enlightened consumers are the most driven by their values when making purchasing decisions and will go out of their way to reward companies who align with their social goals. Aspirationals are more likely to balance their ideals with convenience and often switch between social concerns, availability and price when making purchasing decisions. Practicals are looking for convenience and prioritize products based on price, quality and energy efficiency. Indifferents are the least motivated by social concerns and prioritize price, quality, convenience and products manufactured in the United States.” From Food Marketing Institute.

Want to hear the rest of the story? You can order the Conscious Consumer Report for only US$2,495. Knowledge can loses its appeal when you check the price tag.

Given the 400+ seals, there is a danger that seals and certifications will become so diluted that they are meaningless. Maybe they already are. When I saw the row of seals on a booth at the ABC Kids Expo, I thought, “Wow, they have a lot of certifications.” When I checked more closely, there were NO certifications. The seals represented memberships and affiliations. This isn’t meaningless, of course, but it was a let down.

There are times that certifications matter. As an example, coffee growers and marketers have made it really clear that there are three relevant certifications: organic (important for the health of the fields and the workers), fair trade (which indicates where profits go, that workers are owners not serfs on plantations), and shade grown (which is important for the workers). In this case, consumers who are concerned tend to be well educated about the three important seals to look for.

What seals and certifications matter in buying products for your family? As I wrote earlier, this will depend where your own values lead you, but it is worth seeking out those products that meet your expectations and aspirations. It may be worth it to you to reward those companies who make an effort to let you know more about themselves and their products through memberships and pledges as well as certifications.

In the next installment, I will go through some of the seals you may see when buying products for your baby and family.

]]>http://www.ecobabysteps.com/2009/09/30/green-certifications-do-consumers-care/feed/2Green Certifications: Comparing Green Apples to Orangeshttp://www.ecobabysteps.com/2009/09/28/green-certifications-apples-to-oranges/
http://www.ecobabysteps.com/2009/09/28/green-certifications-apples-to-oranges/#commentsMon, 28 Sep 2009 14:00:00 +0000Attached Mamahttp://www.ecobabysteps.com/?p=624Continue reading →]]>At the ABC Kids Expo, I found striking the prominent display of many seals and certifications. One booth displayed a whole row of seals across the back of their booth, the sign looking a bit like a scouting sash full of badges. You’ve probably noticed a similar collection of badges on product packaging in the store.

There is a proliferation of green seals and certifications in the marketplace. I’ve seen estimates as high as 400 eco-seals, but surely that doesn’t take into account the many awards and other types of seals.

At one end, with so many small certifications looking at one aspect of a product, you have to become informed about a huge variety of standards in order to find any meaning in the seals you see. At the other end, with broader certifying systems, you put your trust in one organization to tell you what is of value in products.

You can’t spend a whole day deciding what to spend 5 minutes buying, but most of us want to be responsible for our choices. How do you navigate all of the assurances in all of their forms? How do you choose?

What are the seals for?

We want to understand where things come from. We want to know provenance. When we are face to face with producers, we can ask. In a global marketplace, we need a substitute for personal trust. We transfer our trust to the certifying organizations and, eventually in some cases, to the seals themselves.

Without education and guidelines to understand what all of the seals mean, we’re lost.

What does the certification mean?

If you see a seal on a product, ask yourself what it means. Is it just a membership in an organization? An award? A note that they signed a pledge or petition? Or maybe a certification of rigorous testing to meet exacting standards?

Memberships are not necessarily certifications, though they do show you where a company’s priorities or marketing intentions are.

Awards often come from independent organizations, most of which had to take time to establish the credibility of their awards. The value of an award depends on the reputation of the award-giving body. Is it a venerated nonprofit or a blog that started last year?

A pledge or petition can be another sign of a company’s values. If a body care company pledges not to use certain ingredients that might be harmful but have not yet been recognized as such or banned by certifying bodies, the value depends on whether you are persuaded by the proposition of the pledge or petition.

Certifications can be made by public, private, or trade organizations, all of which usually make their standards available for the public to see. Certifications can be made by second-parties (the certifying body itself) or through third-party testing (perhaps more independent and neutral). What is often most interesting is what is left out of the standards for certification.

A certification might address: labor, environmental impact, lifecycle analysis (LCA), energy use by end user, functional safety, water use, sustainable forestry, professional training, performance, supply chain, production, or even office practices of the business that makes the product.

When you see a seal or certification claim, ask these questions.

WHO is the certifying body?

WHO are the certifiers? Is the decision in the hands of one person, an organization with an agenda, a panel of experts, a third-party?

WHAT is being certified? Certification can be single-attribute or multiple-attribute. It can apply to a product or a business.

HOW were the standards developed? Is the process open and transparent? If not, how can you be sure that the certification means what you think it does?

Greenwashing

When you are dealing with environmental claims, there is always a danger of greenwashing—though some companies will be accused of greenwashing just because the certifications they receive don’t take into account the measures others might want them to. Just because a plastic product has a certification that says the plastic can be recycled doesn’t make it fair trade. Yes, I know you know that. That’s just simple, right?

It isn’t necessarily obvious to people, though. Some people won’t notice that we’re comparing apples to oranges. Some will just see a seal that is green in color and it will trigger a response. They don’t ask, do I want that green thing?

Grand Systems of Sustainability Measurement

What if you could compare apples to oranges? What if there were a way to compare each product in a massive store to every other product in the store and place them on a scale of sustainability? The world’s largest retailer is trying to do just that. Walmart’s new Sustainability Index attempts to compare the environmental impact of an apple, an orange, a wide-screen TV, and every other product in their store. This is a first pass at a universal eco-labelling system. It is a complex measure of everything their experts tell them matters for sustainability.

What about labor? Is it a part of sustainability to ask how much workers in the field and factory earn for their labor?

What about local solutions? Is it part of sustainability to ask whether a one-size-fits-all global corporate answer provides a better solution than the small and the local?

It all depends where you put your values. We don’t all look for the same measurements of goodness when we make choices for our families. Fair Trade certification might be more important to you than energy efficiency. Even if universal systems of measurement emerge to compare selected attributes of products, there will always be outliers asking, “What about. . . ?”

If seals and certifications are a substitute for personal trust, we may also need to ask whether we trust the certifier. In some cases, the certifying body or the global corporation sponsoring the index may be fighting against a deficit of trust. What does it take to come back from such a deficit in the eyes of consumers to reach a position of trust? Is that even possible?

How do you choose?

Backing off of some of the bigger issues of trust for a moment so you don’t become paralyzed into inaction, how do you choose which products to buy or whether to buy at all?

In the end, your choices will be very personal just as your values are very personal. There are some choices that will be clearly better than others when we consider environmental impact, at least I hope that will be the case when we start to see the results of a very extensive (if not exactly global) index. But as with all broad answers, there will have been compromises made. Some will be happy living with these compromises. If one particular aspect of sustainability isn’t included in the measures and this is very important to you, what good is the global index for you?

In order to make your choice, you need to become conscious of why you are choosing. Cost? Renewable resources? Energy consumption? Local? Labor? Know your important measures then which seals and certifications share your values.

If you have a choice between picking an apple off the tree in your backyard then eating it tonight and buying an orange picked in a grove in Brazil a few weeks ago then shipped to your town, which will you pick? Are they comparable?

]]>http://www.ecobabysteps.com/2009/09/28/green-certifications-apples-to-oranges/feed/10Do I Want This Green Thing?http://www.ecobabysteps.com/2009/08/06/do-i-want-this-green-thing/
http://www.ecobabysteps.com/2009/08/06/do-i-want-this-green-thing/#commentsThu, 06 Aug 2009 20:00:38 +0000Attached Mamahttp://www.ecobabysteps.com/?p=426Continue reading →]]>I guess you can’t fault WebMD for their transparency. In a recent article on baby diapers, they found that neither reusable cloth diapers nor throwaway disposable diapers is a clear winner. This article is framed by five logos and banners and two funding statements. Who sponsors WebMD? Huggies. They are very open about it. And they still found it a toss up? If they had asked Real Diaper Association or Real Diaper Industry Association to sponsor their article (I asked—they didn’t), I wonder how that would have tipped the balance.

Sources unfamiliar with real diaper choices

Part of the problem comes in seeking opinions from those who favor throwaway diapers. Especially in a difficult economy, when they receive funding or samples from only one type of product, which do you think they would favor? Would you ask a pediatrician pushing free baby formula samples whether you should breastfeed or formula feed your baby? Breastfeeding advocates are working to educate those health care providers to rebel against choices that are clearly not better for babies. Cloth diaper advocates have started a similar project to expose childbirth educators to cloth diapers. If health care providers are going to be the source for so much parenting advice, they need to be educated by more than big business with an interest in high turnover and big profit.

The faulty logic of comparing apples to oranges

Just because two different products are both called diapers does not make them comparable. You can’t even really compare a reusable polyester pocket diaper with a microfiber insert to an organic cotton diaper and a wool soaker. They have a similar intended end result, but they are not the same product. This has been a problem with studies and superficial articles that attempt to make comparisons between any two kinds of diapers. What works for any family depends on their own values and needs.

It also amuses me when I see people try to put transportation on cloth diapers as an issue. The new article falls prey to the failure of follow-through logic when it claims that “commercial diaper service delivery trucks consume fuel and create air pollution.” I’m thinking the person who wrote this might be thinking back to another era. Most diaper services today are small and lean. Ask around and see if they laugh when you ask about “commercial delivery trucks.” May I just ask, how did those plastic bags of disposable diapers arrive on store shelves. Did the delivery guys carry them in giant reusable bags on public transit? Were they flown in on the wings of eagles? Uh, no. Massive pallets of disposable diapers are shipped from their offshore manufacturing facilities by sea freight and by commercial delivery trucks. You get the picture, right? Any time you buy a product in a store, you need to add transportation costs. If you use a diaper service, diapers are delivered long-distance one time to the service. The rest of the deliveries are local, which means there are fewer environmental costs to the transportation than deliveries of disposable diapers, since every bag of disposable diapers a parent buys have to be shipped very long distances. The argument that cloth diapers require more energy to transport begs a reader to be blind to the manufacture and delivery of disposable diapers the way they are to the waste of disposable diapers. The argument is tired to the point of being worn out. I would expect more education and clarity from a health care provider.

Another part of the problem is in seeing all cloth diapers as equal. Studies in the UK a few years ago fell into this trap. They took the highest impact cloth diapers and compared them with the lowest impact disposable diapers, found an overlap in environmental impact, and called it a tie. Obviously, that kind of logic is flawed as well. If you want to lower the impact of your cloth diapers, you can easily pull cloth diapers far out of reach of disposable diapers where the environmental impact doesn’t come close to overlapping.

The question about cloth diapers vs. disposable diapers isn’t about logic, though. It isn’t even a question except among those who want to push disposable diapers or those who buy into their terms. This is a question of marketing, branding, money, and profit. Where is the big money? You know the answer. The big money knows that if you make an advertisement a nice, light spring green and put a leaf on it, the part of your brain that bypasses logic will associate that product with nature. That’s nice, isn’t it? Your not-quite-conscious voice says, “I like nature, so I’m going to buy that bag of plastic diapers because it contains some organic cotton somewhere deep inside with the superabsorbent polymers and other petrochemical products.” Well, your voice might stop short of that, but it might get halfway there to say, “I’ll buy the green thing.” That’s why it’s a good idea to bring this into your all-too-conscious mind to ask, is that green thing really green or have I just been a sucker for greenwashing, what SourceWatch calls “unjustified appropriation of environmental virtue.”

If you are looking for facts about cloth diapers, check the people who know about cloth diapers. Look at Real Diaper Associations real diaper facts, all from published studies. They are a nonprofit dedicated to cloth diaper education. If you want to know about disposable diapers, ask the people who make them what they are made out of. If a product says natural, figure out what that means and how much of the product it represents. Check out their MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheets) for all of the ingredients, and ask if these are the materials you want to put on your baby’s sensitive bottom. Pull it all into your logical mind and ask, what is this green thing and do I really want this for my baby?